Brits splash a record £1.1billion at the cinema

New figures released by top chain Cineworld show total box office receipts in the UK and Ireland topped £1.12billion – up by 4.7% on last year.

Not only did we spend more at the movies but we flocked to see more homegrown films than ever.

For the first time on record, British- produced films occupied the top three positions in the chart of the highest grossing films of the year.

Top of the tree in 2011 was the final Harry Potter film which, although funded by US studio Warner Brothers, was produced entirely in the UK.

Close behind was purely British Oscar winner The King’s Speech, which stayed in the top ten for an astonishing three months.

In third was television spin-off The Inbetweeners Movie, which shocked Hollywood by making more money than the fourth Pirates Of The Caribbean adventure.

Figures for the first half of 2011 showed a record one in three tickets bought were for British films – a rate insiders expect to increase further when the success of Harry Potter and The Inbetweeners is also factored in.

Other great British flicks last year included spy thriller Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Aardman Animations’ Arthur Christmas.

Homegrown films Johnny English Reborn, Gnomeo & Juliet, One Day, Anuvahood, We Need To Talk About Kevin and Senna were also hits.

And the future looks even brighterbecause more films were shot in the UK than ever before last year.

The British Film Institute says between January and September, a record £1.04billion was spent shooting in Britain.

Rob Arthur from Apollo Cinemas thinks figures due to be released next week could show cinema owners have enjoyed their biggest audiences since the arrival of the video recorder.

He said: “It’s definitely shaping up to be the best year on record and will challenge the 175million attendees we had across the industry when Lord Of The Rings was out in 2002.”

If the figures beat 176million, cinemas will have had their busiest year since 1971.

The news comes in a sharp contrast to the US, where audiences last year plum- meted to their lowest level since 1995.